Archive for February, 2013

I was desperate to leave home and go to university! Having come from a very rural community I had not had the chance to become sexually liberated. I was out to everyone (except my Dad) but there was just no one else around for me to even try and pursue. I did have 1 blind date with a girl, who I actually did like, but it never got beyond that first date, as we were just too shy. I did meet her again many years later to find her unhappily with a man. I inspired her to leave him and she found a lovely woman and we chat on facebook often now. Anyway I digress…

So I joined the LGB group at uni in the first week and got stuck right in to the social side of things. I went on pub crawls, and club nights 2-3 times per week. I am a very ‘femme’ person and never got any attention in the clubs. Most of our group were men, and I was generally assumed to be the fag hag. The other girl of the group I was just not attracted to (but we did try!!!). I went home with a woman once, but she found out she was to be my first and chickened out and left me sleeping in her bed while she slept on the sofa. So pretty unsuccessful first term.

In our second term a trip was arranged to go to Blackpool. Along on the trip came a girl who I had paid no attention to whatsoever. I was not attracted to her, and anyway she was in a relationship. She walked on crutches most of the times I had ever seen her after hurting herself in a drunken accident. Her face was also very swollen and bruised after the same event. She played rugby and out of maybe a handful of conversations we had ever had, she had shown me all her cuts and bruises from a recent match. Yeah, totally not interested in her. I was asked to share a bed with her and I flat refused. (this was Stacy btw)

She came on the trip dressed as Minnie the Minx, I was dressed as a bee. On the bus there she kept us all entertained. She was so funny! She taught us songs and told us humorous stories. We went out that night and she carried on being the life of the party. Her dancing was hilarious! I started to feel something inside me. I confided in a mutual friend….. ‘I think I like Stacy’ and he said ‘oh that’s interesting she likes you too’ but she was in a relationship….

Over the next couple of days on the trip the tension built between us. We never did anything. One of the things I learnt about her, was that she was very loyal, and had a fierce sense of what was right and wrong. I was left hanging, and in lust.

It took what seemed like an age for her to break up with her girlfriend. When I heard the news I grinned from ear to ear. I text her saying that we should meet up, I was devastated to receive a text back saying that she didn’t want to rush into anything.

We had a break from uni soon after this and we texted a lot. I told her I understood she needed some time and that I would wait.

Once back at uni, I got a text from her inviting me to coffee!!! We walked into town together and into Starbucks. She asked me what I would like. I replied I did not drink tea, nor coffee, nor hot chocolate, nor any fruit juices they had. She had already ordered her coffee and paid £2.20 for me to have a bottle of water. We talked about this the other day. You have to remember that we had NO money and that this drink out was to use all her spare cash for that week. She could not fathom why I let her take me into a place where I did not like anything. We laugh about it now.

The rest of the dating is a bit of a blur, it didn’t take us long to fall head over heals in love with each other. I remember our first kiss vividly after checking with her best friend that that she was ready for me kiss her, I went for it. She was my first, and is still my only. We had from March until June before the summer break. That summer I moved to Hong Kong with my parents.

The early years of our relationship have a lot of separation. I would spend every holiday in Hong Kong with my family and she had to work to have any money. I was so lucky in that I was given money by my parents, but she did not have the same luxury.

By the end of our 2nd year we were faced with a new hurdle. Her course was a sandwich course and she was to spend a year working somewhere. She tried her best to get one in Birmingham so we could stay together but ended up with a placement over 200 miles away in Weymouth. She tells me years later that she had made the decision to break up with me. At the time I suspected it and did everything I could to convince her it could work. We did not break up.

Instead, I spent the next year not going to Hong Kong and instead driving down to Weymouth at every chance I could. Our relationship was on fire! There were weekends we just didn’t get out of bed. When we did manage to come up for a bit of air, we strolled along the beach and cliffs and ate out in cheap restaurants. It was such a glorious year. I look back on it now with such a warm fuzzy feeling. We were so in love.

My parents invited her to spend the summer in Hong Kong. They had met her briefly for a day when they had come home for a bit. It was clear to them, that I would not be seeing them if she didn’t come too! (I had come out to my Dad by now, first year actually)

The summer in Hong Kong was amazing. My parents gave us money and we roamed the city doing whatever we wanted. We were so free and careless.

My parents treated her as a daughter from that very first time together. She had a birthday while we were there and my parents paid and took us to see ‘Stomp!’ and well as take us out for dinner.

Stacy also had her first Disneyland experience. Our house was about 500 metres from Disneyland, and every evening we watched the fireworks. Local residents were invited to go before it opened and so I can say I was one of the first people to ever attend.

We got married for the first time whilst at university! We staged a protest ‘wedding’ before it was made legal. It was loads of fun!

Our final year at uni was fab too, I had my own flat, and although we did have to work hard there was still time for loads of fun. The advantage to Stacy’s sandwich year was that we did graduate at the same time (she was in the year above me)

Our graduation ball

From there, we moved together to Sheffield for me to complete my pre-reg year and for Stacy to do a PGCE. This was a very difficult year as we had less than no money and got into a lot of debt. There wasn’t much fun to be had, it was very stressful for both of us. We supported each other through it though and came out stronger than ever. We got engaged this year and were met with a very lukewarm reception. I don’t think anyone took us seriously. Perhaps they thought we were still too young, perhaps they didn’t believe gay marriage even existed yet.

Still, people came round eventually and coughed up! We were married in 2008.

The story continues, we continued to fall deeper in love, and we started a family together. I watched her walking away from me earlier today and I still love her fiercely. I could not live without her. The spark is very much still alive, and I can see us growing old and wrinkly together.

We have been the house of illness this week. It all started last Thursday when Stacy called me home from choir because both she and Rosa had temps, she struggled to get out of bed on the Friday and by Friday evening I was also poorly with a high temp.

Childcare is soooo difficult when you both have the flu and both the children have the flu. No one wants to get out of bed, and everyone wants to be held/cuddled. Luckily by Saturday Stacy’s fever had broken and she was able to take on most of the childcare duties even though she still felt pretty poorly herself.

I could not get out of bed all Sat and Sun, my temp was raging, I was very poorly. Late Sunday afternoon I woke up from sleeping and felt very unwell. Stacy came to see me and when I tried to talk I suddenly experienced chest pain and was struggling to breathe. We dialed 111 who said they were sending an ambulance. After waiting a while, Stacy decided to take me in instead. I was getting very scared by this point.

At the hospital they saw me quickly, gave me oxygen to help me breathe, and put in an IV with paracetamol, antibiotics and fluid. Even with the paracetamol my temp didn’t budge and when they tried to take me off oxygen I was hypoxic again.

They suspected a blood clot on my lungs again as I had missed a dose of Warfarin and had been imobile for 2 days. They did arterial blood gas test, a chest x-ray and a check of my heart. Still unsure of what was causing the extra symptoms they kept me in that night and I stayed on the drip and the oxygen for the night. During the night they repeated the blood gas test and gave me heparin…just in case there was a blood clot there.

They also would only let me have a sheet and they opened the window. I was freezing, and yet my temp was still 39!

In the morning I was so desperate to go home. I had got very little sleep and still felt so poorly. I wasn’t hypoxic without the oxygen any more so they let me go home. I was so relieved.

Mum had come up in the night to look after the children and she and Stacy had had a horrible night with them, high temps, crying, vomiting and sweating. Mum stayed while we tried to catch up on the sleep and left in the evening (I just hope she doesn’t catch it)

We had another really awful night that night too, Charlie cried the whole night and Stacy ended up sleeping with him. She managed to go to work the next morning as well, I don’t know how she did it! Yesterday things seemed to get a bit better, but again last night Charlie just kept crying and crying. Stacy went to work this morning exhausted. I wish I had helped her more, but I still felt so poorly.

I am so hoping we have turned a corner today and are starting to come out of the flu nightmare. Rosa has not been so clingy this morning and Charlie is playing and being his naughty self (but still very whiny!)

Sooooo ever since giving birth to Rosa I have had….ahem..toilet troubles. I have been putting up with it for months and months and have finally had enough. It is affecting my everyday life, stopping me doing things, and often embarrassing me.

First of all I had to go through a telephone consultation, even though I begged them to just let me have a face to face appt. It was so hard discussing those things with the faceless person on the other end of the phone. The GP I would have preferred to see was booked up for 3 weeks. Anyway she booked me in for this afternoon and I went along all nervous.

After telling her all the issues I was having, she said she needed to examine me. I said ‘I thought you might say that’ to which she threw her hands up in the air and said ‘ I don’t like doing it either you know!’ great, that put me at ease.

Whilst I was on the bed, legs asunder she asked me how sex was. I replied honestly that we had only had sex twice since I gave birth. She recoiled in horror…’how does your husband feel about that?’ Now my notes are full of the fact I am a lesbian. Our files are linked as a family group. But anyway I just informed her my partner was female. ‘oh so how did you manage to have a baby then?’ this is still with my legs open wide by the way…. ‘ummmm donor sperm….’

After the examination she prescribed pelvic floor exercises. Yeah like I hadn’t thought of doing those! She wanted to give me laxatives too which I refused saying that would make things worse. She said ‘will you humour me?’ …..’um no’

So she said I was young and that she was reluctant to refer me for further help, that I seemed like a private person and probably did not want anyone else looking at my ‘bottom’.

Great. So I plucked up the courage to ask for help and was fobbed off with wishy washy advice.

I left feeling quite upset. I do have private medical insurance and might have to put it in ‘motion’ excuse the pun.

Death is such a raw and unexpected thing whilst at the same time being very predictable also. We will all die. Some of us die far too young, and this week I can not get little Caemon out of my mind. Life is so unfair and I will never understand why something that was SO beautiful, could not be left on this earth to flourish and grow, because that boy was going to do amazing things in his lifetime. My thoughts are with his family at all moments.

I was also asked to fill out one of those Facebook chain messages. This is what I put:

Age I was given: 23 I lived in: Sheffield I drove: A blue Corsa I worked at: Specsavers Crystal Peaks I wanted to be: A mother I feared: Dying ( I had my pulmonary embolism this year)

I am now: 28 I live in: Norwich I drive: A Grandad car – Volvo V something…. I work at: Specsavers, Dereham I want to be: a choir teacher, an artist, a pattern designer, a photographer, a mural painter, a swimming teacher, anything that doesn’t involve eyes…. I fear: dying young and leaving my children

Death features a couple of times you will notice.

I did suffer a very large bilateral pulmonary embolism in the year I was 23. I was so very lucky to survive it, that ever since I have been more aware of my mortality. When I was in labour with Charlie, I worried about him dying. When I was in labour with Rosa, I worried about me dying and leaving Charlie without me. The stakes were higher the second time round, someone needed and depended on me being there. Rosa was at the time an unknown entity, yet to fill my world with her wonderful self. I must do my very best to life as long as possible…for them. This means losing weight, exercising, not smoking or drinking and taking my pain in the bum hole medications. I encourage Stacy to do the same, because they need her too.

And what about those goals? I would really like to achieve them, but my children come first. I think I have decided to shelve that 3rd day idea until September when Charlie will start school and Rosa can be with a childminder. I will pick up extra days as and when I can.

And with that, I will go forward and enjoy each and every day we have here on Earth. Make the most of every moment.

I do love to compare photos of me as a child with my children. It is amazing to see my genes popping through. When Stacy has a bio child I just KNOW it is going to be the spit of her, you should see her father, like 2 peas in a pod. I will love comparing to her child photos as well 😉

Thought you might enjoy a few snaps of me as child (excuse the poor quality, I had to use a compact camera on photos in a shiny album)

Aged 10 months (Rosa’s age)

The ‘concentration lips’ which all three of us do! (I need to try and find one of Charlie)

And one of me aged 2. I can so see Charlie’s cheeky grin coming out at me from this photo!